ALAMEDA COUNTY DEPUTIES NAB $2 MILLION IN POT PLANTS

An estimated $2 million worth of marijuana plants were seized southwest of
Sunol on Thursday by Alameda County sheriff's deputies, making it the
agency's second-largest such seizure this year.

An East Bay Regional Park District police helicopter making routine rounds
over Sunol Regional Wilderness and the Calaveras Reservoir spotted the
illegal farm from the air Thursday, on private property in the 4100 block
of Felter Road, mostly in unincorporated Alameda County but stretching a
short way into Santa Clara County.

Sgt. Kelly Miles, head of the sheriff's special investigations unit that
led the raid, said parks police asked the sheriff's department to dispose
of the plants.

Deputies gathered 170 unusually large plants, six to eight feet tall, from
the site near the Sunol wilderness and the reservoir. Those plants were
twice the height of those officers typically find, Miles said.

The cultivators' identities remained unknown Friday, he said, though there
is evidence the people responsible for the plants' care had camped at the
site recently. Food wrappers and Spanish-language magazines were found near
what deputies called the "grove" of marijuana plants.

Officers cut down the plants and took them to an evidence locker; they will
later be incinerated, Miles said.

Thursday's discovery is the second-largest cannabis crop found in Alameda
County this year. In August, deputies destroyed about 300 plants with a
street value of about $3 million, found not far from where Thursday's grove
was discovered.

Miles said it's not uncommon to find marijuana cultivated in that rural
area of the county. The sheriff's department is routinely in the area at
least two to three times a year to eradicate illegal farms. In the past,
crops have been found on San Francisco Water Department land and on East
Bay regional parks land. Rarely are the growers caught.

"We don't have the manpower to wait out for the cultivators," Miles said.
"They camp out when they have to do something to the plants, but usually
they're not (there)."